


i will take the sun in my mouth

by sruoh



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, F/M, sort of fairy tail au???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sruoh/pseuds/sruoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Jaeger didn't believe in fairy tales</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will take the sun in my mouth

**Author's Note:**

> An AU I had in mind for a while. Updates are probably gonna come whenever since I have school. Title is from the poem by e.e. cummings. Chapter titles from various poems by him. They usually don't have anything to do with the story but sometimes they do I guess.

Eren Jaeger didn’t believe in fairy tales.

He thought they were silly, merely children’s play.

Of course, when he was younger, he enjoyed them. His mother used to help him build a makeshift fort out of chairs and blankets. They would climb under it and she would tell stories about a princess who was stronger than even the toughest of soldiers, who could defeat a thousand men, who was an army rolled into one human girl and he was infatuated with the thought. He continued to enjoy that story until the passing of his mother, which he still hasn’t gotten over yet.

He had also enjoyed it when his best friend Armin would tell him stories. They would sit under the big oak tree in their local park, and Armin would bring out his book that belonged to his grandpa and they would lie there together reading from it, reenacting scenes and mimicking the voices of the characters. Sometimes they would stay out so long that Eren’s mother or father would go looking for him and find the two boys asleep and they would laugh and invite Armin over for dinner because of course he was like a second son to them.

They don’t do that anymore.

Eren misses it, but it hurts too much to even think about it. He’s still friends with Armin, hell, Armin is what keeps him sane most of the time, and the only friend he has.

He thinks he’s an almost different person after his mum died.

It was something that couldn’t be helped. She was sick. It came so suddenly that Eren was knocked down and he didn’t have enough time to get back before she had passed away. He clearly remembered the day she died. It was December, and it was snowing.

It fell silently, and that was how his mother died. The snow seemed to mute everything, quiet things down until it was just the sound of the slow _beep… beep… beep…_ that showed him his mother was still alive. He remembered her grabbing onto his hand, and telling him his favourite story. Before she had gotten to the ending, the slow _beeping_ of the monitor stopped, and so did she.

He was childish, back then. He recalled the moment he woke up his dad and try to make him kiss her so that she would wake up. He had never seen his father more distraught in his whole entire life. His father had to bring him out of the room, while the nurses took care of his mum, and explain to him that life wasn’t a fairy tale. That you couldn’t bring back the dead no matter how hard you try.

No amount of kisses could bring back Eren’s mother, and on that day was the day Eren stopped day dreaming of dragons and knights and princesses.

On that day, Eren grew up and realized life didn’t give a shit about what _he_ wanted.                                            

* * *

He’s now 18 years old, and moving into an apartment with Armin.

 Boxes surrounded him, filled to the brim with clothes and knickknacks and other personal supplies. Most of the room however was taken up by books. Stacks and stacks were scattered around the place, and Eren had to watch his step or a hand or a hip or a foot would send them tumbling down.

(That had happened more than once, so he is much more careful now.)

A good portion of the books belonged to Armin, who was planning to study literature at the local university starting this winter. Eren is going as well, but what he wanted to study wasn’t as clear as Armin’s.

He sighed, a hand dragging down his face and he stared down at all the things that were begging to be put away and organized. He ran his hand through his thick, brown hair for good measure          , and grabbed a box that had _Eren_ scrawled onto it. He heaved it up with a grunt, but in the process knocked over a stack of books he tried so carefully to avoid.

He swore, and placed the box down with a loud _thump_ and kneeled down to pick up the mess. He carefully stacked the books, one by one until he got to the last one, which made him stop.

His eyes grew wide and his chest started to hurt.

It was the book Armin and him had read when they were children. It has worn down considerably, pages fraying at the edges and the cover barely legible.  He could barely make out the words _fairy tale_ and the colours had faded tremendously.

His hands were shaking, fingers flitting over it carefully, as if it were to crumble under his hands at any given moment. He tried to steady his breathing but his throat had tightened up and his breaths were more like gasps.

His phone began to vibrate, an annoyingly cheery sound that pulled him from his trance. With still slightly shaking hands he pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. It was Armin. He tried to keep his voice steady, but it still came out shaky. He winced.

“Hello?”

“Eren are you alright?” Armin sounded worried. Eren knew he couldn’t hide anything from Armin. He was not only good at reading books, but also people. He could tell what Eren was thinking, or how he was feeling, so when Armin didn’t hear an answer, he quickly dropped the subject. “Sorry I’m late, I’ll be there soon.” He laughed softly, which made Eren smile. “Grandpa was getting a bit… touchy feel-y. When he saw me packing the last of my things he started crying, so we had some tea and pulled up old photo albums.” He heard some shuffling and a slight grunt before Armin started speaking again. “I just finished packing the last of my things into the car.”

“Ah.” Eren didn’t really have much to say to that. He wasn’t really much of a talking-on-the-phone type of person. He preferred face-to-face interaction. It was comforting to see and read the person’s facial expressions, and silences on the phone were just awkward. “Alright, I’ll hang up now. See you in a few minutes, Armin.”

“Okay! See you, Eren.”

The phone went off with a click, and Eren was left with just silence and the book. He didn’t really know what to do with it. Armin must have kept it for a reason, but he didn’t really see why. He could burn it right now, or rip it apart, maybe even flush it down the toilet bit by bit, but Armin doesn’t appreciate damaged books in the slightest, so the only thing he could possibly do was just grab it and hide it beneath the others.

He stacked it between the others, making sure it didn’t fall, then turned back to what he was going to originally do. He was planning on just forgetting about the whole thing, and hope that Armin doesn’t bring it up later.

The sun filtered through the blinds of the living room, illuminating the room and filling it with the warm light, shadows playing across the walls, and for the first time in a long time, Eren cried.


End file.
